Lucky Old Sun
by Elizabeth Cicero
Summary: It was on the banks of Charleston, South Carolina, that young Jack first found the meaning of life. As a merchant Captain under the employ of England, it is a family in the New World, and a girl named Delilah, who give him true peace and happiness.
1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE:

* * *

**

**Charles Towne, South Carolina ****–**_April 30__th__, 1750

* * *

_

"Tell me again," she whispered.

Cheek to cheek, with their eyes peeled to the crystal blue skies, they laid long and opposite in the tall grass, like always. His skin was rough against her small face, chin furry from months spent at sea, collecting stories for only her. But he was handsome. He was never _not_ wholly handsome to her.

She knew he was falling asleep by the peaceful sound of his breathing. And she knew that she wasn't supposed to feel what she did when she was this near to him, inhaling the salted musk of his clothes and black twists of hair. She knew she wasn't supposed to feel anything more than what she felt for her own brother, a familial affection. But as much as she knew what was expected of her, she couldn't help herself still, after four years of his friendship.

"Jack."

He groaned as he opened his eyes.

"Yes, little dove?"

"I want to hear the story, the one about the Grecian coast."

"_Grecian coast_…" he hummed ignorantly.

In frustration, Delilah twisted to lie on her stomach in the grass, staring sidelong down into his black eyes. She was completely taken by his curious expression. The hem of her white dress was already dirtied from the day's long adventures, sword fighting and shell-diving. She knew her mother would not be happy about that. Her sandy feet were crossed behind her, kicking in the sunlight.

"Tell me about the mermaids. How beautiful were they?"

"Words can't tell of it."

"You lie. Think of one."

He smiled and closed his eyes to the sun, trying to picture the young women in his mind's eye, each of them so different, of sprawling loveliness.

"Ethereal," Jack finally proclaimed with a smirk. "There is your word."

"_Ether—eel..._? Whatever does that mean?"

"It means they were a peculiar bunch o' beauties, otherworldly creatures really."

Delilah toyed absently with the shells of her necklace.

"Did they wear seashells in their hair?"

With a late afternoon yawn, Jack rolled over in the grass. He rested on his forearms the same as she did, his shoulder-length hair a mess of trinkets and sand and grass. He smiled at her impish face, the face of a child too curious for her own good and his alike. He loved that most about Delilah Hawkins.

"Seashells, of course," he agreed with a thoughtful gaze. "Scales of every color you can imagine covering their legs, and hair as long as their tails, some o' them. There was one, _Persephone_. Oh, like the goddess herself. She had little pink starfish bound t' her ears."

Jack reached out and tugged at the lobe of Delilah's ear as she giggled.

"That's not possible."

"Anything's possible."

She thought about that for a long time, turning to her back again and staring up at the drifting puffs of clouds. She wanted to reach out and snatch one for herself, carry it home in the palm of her hand to show her brother and Papa and Mama. She was sure that if Jack thought anything was possible, then it was. But she needed confirmation.

"You mean it truly, anything in the world?"

"Aye," he sighed and relaxed to the ground once more, their cheeks touching in the same way— rough to soft, innocent to hard worn, twelve to a staggering twenty and eight.

He'd never felt safer in all his years than he did lying in the grass with her, or on that coast of that southern colonial town, or welcomed in the Hawkins' home as a brother, a son. It was as if his position with the Company disappeared whenever he was in Charles Towne. It was as though he could conquer the whole world without ever stepping foot off that bank of sand and peace. And that was nice. It always was, for a while or so.

Things hadn't been so complicated then. The world hadn't turned upside down on him yet. He was simply Jack, Captain of the _Wicked Wench_ and supplier of East India goods to the flourishing Americas.

It was a very different time in his life. It was a believable sort of period, where children's stories about mermaids were as potent as actually seducing them off the coast of Greece. He traveled the Atlantic as he pleased under crisp white sails. He gave orders smoothly, without the fierce tongue he'd been raised under. And he fought nothing but his own yearning for real adventure each day. Luckily, for that he had a right-hand charlatan in Delilah, child prodigy to his spirited mind.

An echoed call from her mother arrived with the crashing waves on the shore, and Delilah leaped to her bare feet, struggling to pull Jack up as well.

"Let's go," she shouted and scampered off through the high yellow cattails.

"I'll race you to supper!"

He gave her a head start and stood smiling on the sand hill, watching her tumble and skip in her dress down the path. After an extended count of five, he hurdled after her with arms spread wide and legs strong, certain he hadn't felt so free in years. When he reached her heels, he wrapped his strong arm around her tiny waist and threw her over his shoulder, a giggling, wind-swept mess of a child.

It was that moment in fact, which he would always remember had been the beginning of the end, of his very _first_ life.


	2. Chapter 1: Catching Tales

**Chapter 1: Catching Tales

* * *

**

**Sullivan's Island, South Carolina ****–**_July 21__st__, 2009

* * *

_

It was the sort of rare afternoon on the banks of Charleston where the weather was both unbearable and inescapable. The heat was odd, even for this time of year. It glued shirts to the backs of fisherman on the docks, and left dewy moisture on the inside rim of baseball caps.

And where there was heat on the island, there was no bar stool left unturned at Poe's Tavern.

Half emptied drafts ran the length of the bar top and peanut shells were scattered across the old cinderblock floors. Every shutter window was open and every fan was on full blast, threatening the patrons with their loose wires and swaying creaks. Jimmy Buffet and Bob Marley dueled for attention, while a broadcast of the Clemson and North Carolina game claimed each television screen.

There were poets of the sea, men with tales larger than their lives, and simpletons with simple smiles and spirits. It wasn't a place to complain about, even during the busy months. It was the sort of place where a man could get lost from the world, and where if he was good enough, he could find the answers to all of his problems before the last call at midnight.

That at least was one man's intent.

He entered with a strut of faded confidence, a black hat of indiscernible style tilted low over his eyes, and a jaw line painted with dark whiskers. A seat at the far end of the bar, warmed recently by a local giant, became his. He was slumped, leaning for balance even while sitting, and hidden beneath the shadow of his own mystery. He was silent until he was approached from behind the bar.

"What can I get for you?"

Inaudible as it was, he mumbled a response as he lifted his head.

"A draft—"

"Any one in particular?" the girl tried.

The man shook his head slightly, and eased his hat away, eyes revealed beneath a stretch of crimson fabric tied across his damp forehead. They were solitary eyes, but ones that had seen the world. She could tell this immediately, because she knew what world traveler's looked like. She knew what local sailors didn't have, that a man like him—one who'd seen true pain and suffering far and away—owned outright.

His eyes told stories, even before his lips had breathed a word of them.

Finally he said, "Just sumthin' cold."

An accent flurried. It was a complicated mess of every place he'd every ventured, and she was certain of that. It made her smile, made her all too curious. She filled an iced glass with the closest tap, paying no attention to what it was.

When she slid it onto the bar, he met her halfway to retract the glass, and she fell madly in love with his hand, as foolish as it seemed. His long fingers were dirty, but were no warning of poverty. His nails were chipped and frayed and worn like only a true man's could be. Rings—too many perhaps, and still not enough—danced on the surface of every joint, and glittered in the sunlight as he moved his hand away. Only then, did she realize he was staring her directly in the eyes, intent on whatever he had found.

What indeed.

There had been too many girls like this. From coast to coast, they were strung down the islands like stars in the night sky. At a distance, or with an unobserving eye, they all were alike. But only when a man was permitted to sit close and lend a focus to one, could he find the small things that made each woman unique.

This young girl, he guessed, was halfway to fifty—maybe. She was a solid, spectacular female. And her beauty was all undermined by work and determination and defense. He wasn't sure whether her hair was honey brown or cherry blond. The light hit it differently from each side of her face, the noon day sun from the East side and the awaiting blue of the West.

The beams caught the freckles on her cheeks and her pert breasts inside of her low cut white t-shirt. The kiss of the sun was evident on her skin everywhere. She was cast under the shadow of her own tattered blue cap that held her hair away from her eyes.

The eyes of which, he was most drawn.

For what color could a man long for more in the eyes of a woman, than the shade that made the Galapagos what they were, the blue-green that even sea glass could not be found of? What could he find more pure and as equally wicked, than the color that would not be a jade, and could not be indigo, but was one of its own, unnamed and impossible to match.

_Nothing at all_, he thought to himself as he indulged in a sip of the cold beer.

He somehow knew that this was what he needed. She was the company, the ear perhaps, that he had ached to find, to speak every word of his every painful and joyous tale to. By the light in her eyes, he knew that she was why he had stumbled in here on a whim, and why he could not finish his beer, pay and turn out. He had to stay until he could tell her every secret and admit every fault.

"Can I get you anything else?"

He had a million and one answers, but the best he could come up with, after a shuffle of his boots on the bar stool, and a fumble of his numb tongue, was, "Your name?"

Her smile, in the silhouette of her cap, was enough to soak his entire core, rattle him. But she was interrupted.

"Charlie! You're gonna owe me twenty big ones!"

Her face moved, hair and hat and all, towards the sound of an overweight local at the end of the bar. There were surrounding men and women laughing, pointing to a screen where the game persisted, and her team was losing. She nodded with an annoyed smirk, then turned back to the man with the question lingering on his tongue.

"Charlie—a gentleman's name?"

"No," she fought with that same tired smirk. "Charlie is my brother. They're teasing me. He hasn't worked this bar in five years."

She wiped the sweat off her neck and smiled. "I'm Kate."

He took another long swig of his beer, sloshed it about in the glass, and then raised his eyes to her again. He was transfixed. The name suited her so very well.

"D' you think ye could do one more thing for me then, _Kate_?"

She swiped the bar with a rag and said, "Sure."

The man smiled and her heart melted like the banks of Charleston in this strange heat wave.

"Could ye lend me yer ear for a while, maybe listen t' an old sailor ramble?"

She straightened herself, fixed her hat a little, tucked the damp cloth in the back pocket of her jeans and with a single blink of her eyes, opened them like crystals under the sea.

"Does your story start with 'Once upon a time'?"

Lowly, he chuckled.

"I'm afraid not, love."

"Good," she said, biting her bottom lip. "I don't like fairytales very much. I like life."

"I've seen quite a bit o' that."

Kate leaned on her hand.

"Do tell."

And he did, starting where he knew he needed to, where the real story had begun.

"Well,_ there was this ship_…"


	3. Chapter 2: Oceans Away

**Chapter 2: Oceans Away

* * *

**

**London, England – **_August 1746

* * *

_

Far weaker men had stumbled upon the gangplank of the ship known as the _Wicked Wench_ and felt nothing more than the sway of the breeze and the waves beneath the bow. But this was not the case for the young man scaling the steps at dawn, on the first of the new month in harbor. He felt wary and sickened by the sea rocking a yard down below. He felt as though he should have held commission a week longer at the notary's office, instead of trying to rush back home.

"Over head!" someone shouted behind him, and he ducked for a passing barrel being carried by two fumbling older men.

He gripped the rail of the ship and breathed in the gray London fog. He felt green with anxiousness. Not because he hadn't been on a ship before, or one of this scale, for that matter. Not because he had reservations about sailing home across the open waters. Not because he had fears of not returning at all, of being lost in a late summer squall or early hurricane. None of these were reasons at all.

He only stood fidgeting at the side of the ship, out of the crew's way, to convince himself that he would not find the same fate on this return leg of his journey that he had on the crossing from home. Pirates and their ominous attack had turned eighteen year old Sebastian Hawkins, son of a merchant fisherman, into a true sea-venturing man. They had been far more evil than his father's stories had ever told. They had been cruel and lowly, and he did not want to cross paths with another lot of them, for anything in the world.

When a young boy no more aged than the boots slipping off the backs of his feet, scurried in his direction on the deck, Sebastian stopped him with a kind hand on his shoulder.

"Do you know where I might find the Captain?"

The boy looked up with a dirtied grin and then pointed to the cabin doors across deck.

Nodding, Sebastian patted his shoulder and moved from the rail. He walked slowly, able to get some of his bearings as he crossed the swabbed planks to the closed cabin doors. The sway of a single lantern in the right side window mocked the tilt of the ship. There was a rustle of movement from inside and a sound resembling a woman's laugh. Before he could knock for an invitation inside, the door flung open in his face with a gust of activity.

There was a woman—indeed, a beautiful and half undone woman.

There was a man pressing this woman to the doorway, hungrily.

Laughter crowded their entanglement as their mouths wove together. The man's hands groped the woman's curves and Sebastian tried to turn away, walk backwards from the scene and not stare. But the woman, with her mussed golden hair and smeared lipstick, broke the kiss and looked over her lover's shoulder. She didn't say a word. She only grinned at Sebastian as she tightened her hold on a dress and stockings and shoes that had been torn from her person, in the heat of whatever had taken place in that room in the dark of night.

She kissed the man pinning her to the doorway on the corner of the lips, batted her eyelashes and stepped aside. The man reached out and slapped her round bottom.

"Mary, _my little China doll_…"

Her giggles were swept away on the last warm London breeze, as Sebastian met the eyes of the man before him. He hadn't so much as noticed until then, that he was held modest by only a slowly falling sheet.

The man—the Captain, presumably, despite his looking far too young for the task—smirked at the other young man beside him and turned into his cabin, not saying a word. He left the door open though and with a wave of his hand over his head, summoned Sebastian inside.

Hesitant as he was, he followed, only to run into more embarrassment. The man, who had once been cloaked in a sheet, tossed it aside and stood stark nude in the middle of the room. He gasped, apologizing, and forced his eyes in another direction.

The captain chuckled darkly.

"Never seen another bloke stripped before?"

Sebastian coughed out a "Yes." He twisted his hands together nervously. "Yes, sir, I have. I was only trying to—"

"Be a gentleman," the man finished for him, laughing.

"Yes. That," he agreed.

There was more movement, the sound of cloth being draped over bare skin and bed linens being torn through in search of something. And it was found, only nowhere near the bed, but at Sebastian's feet.

"A little help, mate?"

With a nervous twitch in his leg, Sebastian kicked the breeches backwards across the wood floor of the cabin, taking a breath. When he was given the word of clearing, he turned around to find a man very near to full dress.

His tunic was wrinkled and stained from months of heavy drinking and otherwise, which made Sebastian blush slightly in his presence. His breeches were undone of one button towards the top and tucked ever so tiredly into his boots. He wore no proper stockings. But he did wear his coat of rank, gold buttons and lapels shimmering on the blue navy fabric.

The man was not what Sebastian was expecting. He was too young to be a regimental Captain of the British Royal trade system, and for that matter, far too unqualified as a patron saint and leader. He was a mess of a man from first glance, with twists of dark brown, almost black hair scouring his collar and ears. He was in need of a decent shave, a bath perhaps, and sustenance other than the emptied bottles of wine and rum that lined the edge of his charting table. He was a man as off balance as the books on his shelves and the glass in his hand. And yet oddly enough, Sebastian found something to be charmed by. He could see where the Captain's voluptuous company had easily fallen into his lap.

The man at last looked back to him, worn and curious-eyed. His voice was raspy.

"What's your name?"

"Sebastian," he answered. "Sebastian Hawkins, sir."

The Captain nodded suspiciously and took a long sip of his drink.

"Are you a sailor? Did the red coats on the hill send you t' me for duty?"

He didn't quite understand what he could mean and shrugged.

"What are you doing here then?"

Sebastian took a breath, stood straighter and said, "I'm looking for passage home. I heard a rumor that this is an import flagship of the East India Company, and that you are set to sail for Charlestown Harbor."

"Ah," the Captain nodded with a teasing grin. "I heard that rumor too, mate."

"And is it true? Is your course set for the south of Carolina?"

"It is."

"Might I then—" Sebastian stopped himself and thought for a moment. Then he asked, "You are the Captain. What is your name?"

Wonder played at the corner of the man's lips as he staggered toward him. His reply was a whisper of a command, a low growl intended to frighten the weak and entertain the brave, like Sebastian himself.

"Captain John Edward Teague." He took another sip of his wine and grinned. "But that's only when we're docked in the presence o' God and his ilk."

Sebastian nodded with full interest and the man added, "On the sea, it's Jack."

"Captain Jack."

Smirking, Jack patted Sebastian on the back and turned him for the door.

"I like you, Hawkins_. Hawk_…" a thoughtful expression. "Yes, Hawk. I like that."

Sebastian grinned and without another thought or question to the matter, gave into the wily tone of Jack's voice, gave into the sounds of the scurrying crew and the madness of the anchor-weighed ship, and most importantly of all, gave into this new world, the new ways he'd only just begun to discover.

There was something here, with this strange man and his namely _'wicked' _ship and his proper British crew, that gave Sebastian—_Hawk_—the sense that the universe around him was shifting and that things were never going to be the same again.

* * *

**Long Bay, South Barbados – **_September 20__th__, 1746

* * *

_

It was the whispers and hushed gestures of dealing sailors over a broken table in the cloudy corner of a lone tavern. It was the heat of the exotic beach they had hauled onto. It was the scent of dark women and strong drink and salty tobacco being blown across Sebastian's face that made his knees weak with uncertainty.

He stood at a prime vantage point, spying on every activity, of every patron in the place. There were men loosening their hold on the bar and giving into the wickedness of their last swig. There were red-lipped, starry-eyed young girls in doorways and behind curtains and half stretched across tables, giving themselves over to whoever would offer the most.

The air was sweet but toxic. The company had dangerous smiles. And he was sure, that if he let himself really enjoy all of it, he could have both the best liquor and the prettiest face for himself, with nothing more than the flash of an eye and a drop of a coin.

Sebastian smirked at the thought, feeling more a man than he ever had before. Their short venture south to the islands had been something of a thrill for him, though he hid the fact well amongst the crew and especially from the Captain.

The real effort of their weighing anchor in Long Bay was to secure a half shipload of Caribbean tobacco and sugar. This of course, did not include the dozen or so shady deals against the Crown that Jack had mentioned in confidence on their voyage. The man trusted him for some reason. And he could not, would not, think of defying that sort of protection in any way.

"Go on an' pick one," a now familiar voice demanded over his shoulder. "They all do the same bloody things anyway."

He laughed and turned to Jack.

"I wouldn't know the first thing about having that sort of company."

A smirk fled his new friend's mouth as he doused his gut with another bottle. He wiped the excess rum away with the back of his hand, and nudged Sebastian in the arm.

"That one," he grunted. "That lass right there." He pointed to the buxom, hazelnut skinned woman in a faraway corner. "She's the one you want."

He could hear the experience lingering in Jack's voice and grinned nervously.

"You've known her?"

With a proud saunter, Jack lifted his hands in admittance and chuckled.

"Have her for yourself tonight an' find out."

It was a challenge. Sebastian knew this, the same as he'd known the sound of a challenge in an assortment of ways since they had set sail from London. Jack, he had quickly learned, was a betting man, and a very good one. He knew the odds of all possible situations. He read them in thin air. And he was particularly good at reading Sebastian's abilities.

That was the reason why, when he finally did build up the courage enough to walk across the tavern hall and place his hand on the warm back of the island beauty, when he offered her his hand and the room upstairs, he caught Jack's eyes from a close table. They shared an invisible laugh between men, and he collected his new friend's wink, before he followed the silk dress tails of his conquest.

In Charlestown, Sebastian knew he had been a different person. In London, he had remained that same proud young man, never failing his ill grandmother for whom he had been sent to watch after until her death. He had only stayed as long as he had because the summer monsoon rains had made his mother nervous of his sailing back. He had taken proper occupation with Mr. Dandridge at the notary's office. He had passed the faces of nice young ladies often, smiled and kissed their gloved hands at given intervals, but never thought of taking a wife.

He wanted only one woman in this world in such a way as that, and she was not in England, nor on the wretched coast of Barbados. The illustrious maiden, his Lucy, was on the sands of South Carolina, the place that he had spoken of often all too fondly whenever Jack had asked him about it.

"Even the sea cannot seem t' distract you enough from it," Jack had muttered one drunken night in his cabin, in which both young men sat half dazed and telling stories to pass the lonely time. "This must be some sort o' a place."

Sebastian smiled with a dribble of rum on the stubble of his chin. He had never known hair upon his chin for longer than a passing afternoon, before he'd known Jack.

"No man could ask for more if he had the sands of South Carolina under his feet and a beautiful woman at his side."

Jack had laughed at him.

"You're young and romantic and foolish."

Hawk scoffed in return though, "No younger than you by a count of a single hand." And he drew his fingers out one by one, tipsily counting. "Twenty _and_…" he droned and mumbled towards his response. "—and three."

Jack was amused fully, his dilated eyes glowing. Though he would not admit to Sebastian out right, he was grateful to have found a decent friend in his company. He hadn't known a single man in his upstanding crew that had half the heart or enthusiasm as he did, and Jack admired that most of all about his new mate.

Even during his earlier days of being on the sea, even among the wicked and wandering lives of men who lived like giants and stole like the honest thieves they were, Jack had never really found much comfort. He had convinced himself from a young age that if he couldn't be Captain of a ship headed further into the horizon each new morning, he could not be happy in life. And so in a moment of defiance against the clever world of piracy he had been raised to know so well, Jack had boarded the first and only East India Company vessel to _ever_ enter Shipwreck Cove and leave in one piece.

The rest, as he so often informed Sebastian of with a wistful grin and wave of his slender hand, was the history of the government which had thus trapped him, a rebellious boy of only seventeen at the time. There had been a few early years, lacing anchor knots and mopping decks on British Navy ships in port. Then there was a brief period where he had worked directly under the commission of the King, manning the crow's nest of his own personal schooner in the harbor at night.

When he had single-handedly taken down a hoard of thieves in the dark of the London fog, Jack had been promoted to midshipman on a trading vessel bound for the West Indies. And from there had arrived his promotion to Lieutenant and Commander and lastly, of course, Captain of his own merchant craft.

"It's not freedom at all," he had grumbled to Sebastian on another stormy drunken afternoon. "It's a cage on the sea is what it is. I have to take their bloody ship faithfully back to harbor. I have to receive and deliver their goods to the_ fine_ men and women o' New England's coast."

His sarcasm never went unnoticed to his younger friend, nor unappreciated for that matter.

"_Freedom_…" Jack had sighed into the rim of a wine bottle. "It doesn't exist. You mark my words, Hawk."

Sebastian nodded. But he could not believe it, or let Jack believe it either.

"You're wrong," he finally argued with his same soft voice that Jack found oddly soothing in the bleakness of the passing days at sea. "There is freedom, Jack."

"Oh yes," Jack flew from his chair with a taunting, sing-song voice and hands waving in Sebastian's face. "On the handsome coast in Carolina, you mean t' tell me!"

With a bite of a laugh, Sebastian looked up into his friend's dark eyes.

"I do." He smirked and Jack followed suit. "When we've arrived there, I'll show you. Even you won't be able to deny it."


	4. Chapter 3: Footprints and Fireflies

**Chapter 3: Footprints and Fireflies

* * *

**

**Poe's Tavern, Charleston – **_July 21__st__, 2009

* * *

_

There was silence in their conversational bubble. The words had flowed so endlessly for an hour, that when the man stopped speaking, stopped telling the story, Kate was lost. Her knees were weak where she was standing behind the counter and her teeth bit into her lip with the sort of curiosity that can be more often conjured out of a child of five, than a young woman of twenty-five.

Finally she sighed. "And…?"

The dark, mysterious man looked up at her from under the hem of his bandana.

"What?"

Kate stood straighter, her eyes fierce.

"What did he think of it? Was Sebastian right? Did Jack fall in love with this place?"

With a wave of a white cloth, she gestured around the bar, gesturing to the world outside of the sun damaged walls, the coast of her little Carolina haven. The man smiled a twisted smile, proud of having her undivided attention in the subject matter, and pushed his emptied beer glass towards her on the bar.

"Another," he whispered. "And I'll tell you, love."

Kate refilled his glass more quickly than he could have supposed. And then she tilted her head, rested her elbow on the counter, her chin on her fist, and raised her brow with eyes as wide as the sea staring through him.

"Go."

He took a gulp of the thick, cool beer and laid his adorned hands out flat on the bar.

"_The Wench sailed into Charles Towne in the middle of the Indian summer…"

* * *

_

**Charles Towne, Carolina – **_October 3__rd__, 1746

* * *

_

No breeze had ever felt, nor tasted so delicious before.

It rose up from the bow of the ship, curled over the railing like a long desired acquaintance, and blew across the deck in one easy sweep. It filled the sails non-threateningly and hugged every plank and spoke and line and barnacle of the vessel. And then, having saved its finest warmth in a single imaginary cloud, it blew against the nape of Jack's neck and ruined him for every other breeze, in every other port town, in every other corner of the world.

He breathed in and threw his head back slowly, eyes closed. There was nothing to be embarrassed or concerned or angry about in this weather, in this place. He could stand there at the helm of his ship, shudders of pleasure rippling through him in ways that he had only ever known a woman to stir in him. He could bathe in the ecstasy of this new shore and its new scent and its feminine touch upon his flesh. Carolina was welcoming him, inviting him in to stay awhile.

And though he loathed admitting that Sebastian had been right all along, Jack knew he could not deny the fact.

"Beautiful," his friend exclaimed at his side, climbing up the stairwell. "Did I not tell you?"

Jack's eyes snapped open and his hands on the wheel grew firm. He cleared his throat.

"Not bad."

Sebastian smirked knowingly and stood at Jack's side, watching as the _Wench_ harbored into the pink evening waters of his home.

This was the only place other than England that he had ever known prior to befriending Jack. Their adventures had been a fascinating detour, truly. But he could not deny his sickness for home, for the joyous faces of his family and friends, for his Lucy's welcoming gaze. Those were the things that Sebastian cherished most, no matter the coin or company or care that Captain Jack Teague could provide him, though it had been much appreciated.

They weighed anchor at Smith's Wharf, where barrels of indigo, tobacco and rice were to be hauled into the belly of the vessel over the course of the following day. It was the part of sailing that Jack cared little for, the trading between ocean's, especially of anything with Britain.

He knew the men he worked beneath well enough to know that it all led back to a thirst for power, no matter how generous they were with merchant ships and prices. Jack was just another puppet, dangling from their promotional string, and these unsuspecting patrons of the Carolina coast, in his eyes, were simply puppets beside him.

He knew far better from a childhood of truths at Shipwreck, to trust any of it.

Inside of his cabin, he dressed properly for the occasion of stepping abroad, of directing the traffic of his proper English crew with proper English words. Each button of his festooned coat that he hooked left him a little more disgusted. The spit-shined boots that he pulled onto his dirty feet nearly reflected his face, and he wanted to slash them open from the toe outward with the tongue of his sword.

He wanted to go out onto the deck of his ship—nay, the company's ship—barefoot in naught but his breeches, and shout orders like a wild ape of some unknown island. He wanted to give these proper men and women of this proper new English port town, in this proper New World, a true taste of what the sea did to men like him.

But he looked at himself in the mirror, tucked the mussed waves of his black hair behind his ears and straightened his chest against a late afternoon drink or two, or five.

This wasn't the boy that had pick-pocketed the coats of his father's roguish company when they had been too drunk and too numb to know the difference between his small hand and that of a woman's. This wasn't the same boy that had run rampant about the Cove, glossed in sweat and saltwater, twigs in his hair and mud beyond his ankles. This wasn't the boy who had tried to outrun whatever ship owner he had angered, by using their vessel as the source of his undying imagination for an hour or so.

No. This was some other young man, born under the Crown, with a fair-haired mother waiting somewhere for him. This was what the Company had done to another young rebel, and Jack hated knowing that his chances of escaping it now were as slim as his convincing Sebastian to stay on, to keep him from boredom.

There was a knock at his door, a proper young man's knock that he'd come to know.

"Right," he shouted, before slipping through the door and joining Sebastian on deck to complete the task of unloading trade cargo.

The sun was moments from disappearing over the horizon, when the pair stumbled off the ship, down the quayside for the outer paths of the town. Jack was fidgeting with one of the golden buttons on his coat, the one that had been threatening to fall off since leaving the docks of London last. He flicked at it, turned towards the violet sky over the ocean, and stared at Sebastian out of the corner of his eye.

He laughed at the nervous way his new friend was smiling back at him.

"What?" Jack asked. "Can't quite seem t' leave me, can you Hawk?"

Sebastian shook his head.

"I can. I must, Jack. This is—"

"Oh yes, I know." He chided, patting Hawk's shoulder firmly. "This bloody wonderful beach is home, as sweet as can be."

Now Sebastian laughed.

"You're not staying here in town tonight are you?"

Jack hummed under his breath and swiveled about on the heels of his boots. "I'm sure I'll find a nice little 'ole to cozy up in." He winked suggestively at his friend. "Won't I?"

"Yes. Or you're perfectly welcome to a room at the Hawkins' residence."

His finger tapped at his rough chin.

"Is that just so?"

"Of course," Sebastian said with an honest expression. "I'd like you to meet my family."

"And dearest Lucy, too?" he teased.

Sebastian blushed a little, nodded with a _'surely'_ and began towards the shore, Jack at his side.

It was a small green rowboat, sunken into the warm waters of the Charleston Harbor, which led them across to Sullivan's Island. Through the lesser isles of the cove, they steered together under the helm of the rising night, down through the Narrows. Cypress trees sprouted from the water, distracting Jack with the wildlife that surrounded them, hundreds of birds and bats dangling from their mossy branches overhead. It was a swamped oasis that he hadn't quite expected from this place, and Sebastian chuckled at the expression it left on his face as they approached the last stretch of beach on the crest of the Atlantic Ocean.

"There it is," he murmured into the quiet evening, with a gesture of the oar.

Jack's eyes drifted from the trees and over the twilight shore, to where a wildly enormous manor sat alone, in the rift of sand and island grasses and under a canopy of moss and stars. It could not have been better if he had imagined it, the Hawkins' house, Carolina, the exotic English port of Charles Towne.

"Not bad," he finally sighed, a salvaged response all he could think to come up with.

Sebastian laughed and rowed the boat ashore, where a trail of small footprints leading further inland awaited the both of them. Jack stumbled out of the dingy to find the imprint of toes in the purple sand and his friend's larger feet bare beside them.

"You don't have to impress anyone here, Jack."

He looked up with a crooked smirk and then immediately kicked off his boots. His dirty feet sank into the cool sand and he sighed in contentment, following Sebastian and the trail of dainty feet that led them up the hill to the glorious house.

It was a tiered gem, with three floors of clamored boards painted indigo and violet at random. Lanterns were strung about the porch, candles in every window, with a heavenly scent that blew through the palm fawns of the trees surrounding the beach. The sounds were of the ocean and the air and something that sounded distinctly like a—

"Delilah," Sebastian snickered under his breath and took off into the high grasses.

Jack followed, quiet and curious of what this could mean,_ Delilah_, and said so very sneakily as well. He knew of a Lucy that held Sebastian's interest, but had heard nothing of a Delilah in all of their ventures together over the past months. And for that he could not have guessed what he might find, what this name might have presented, or worse, inspired.

Sebastian stopped at the edge of the creek where it curled around the shore again. He stared out above the grass and into the forest of palms and cypress. This is where Jack paused at his side.

The sound rang out in a whisper through the breeze, from inside of the wooded confines where a million tiny lights were flying about. It was the sound of a child at play, giggling into the night, and it unnerved Jack. He knew nothing of children, often pretended to have never been one, and was in no position to want to meet one.

But then Sebastian nudged his arm and pointed in the direction of the subject, of this _Delilah_, sprouting from the woods. Jack's mind was entirely changed.

It might have been her flowing white skirts, her tiny bloomers, splattered with mud and saltwater and sand to nearly the knees. It might have been the way she was dancing around in the moonlight of the island's meadow, her arms spread as high as they would reach, one holding a tin can that reflected with every move she made. It might have been the fact that with her heart so profoundly set, she didn't even see the two of them there, two young gentlemen laughing at the sport of a twirling child, desperate to catch just one of those glowing bugs.

It might have been anything at all that first hooked Jack.

"Watch this," Sebastian whispered, scurrying in her direction unnoticed.

Jack wasn't sure if he was smiling, or just learning how to smile again in that moment. He swung his boots at his side and felt his toes creep further into the sandy grass. He studied the way Sebastian preyed on the young girl, leaping out with a surprised greeting and swinging her into his arms as if he were ten times stronger than Jack had yet seen.

The child laughed, her bare feet kicking and her untamed auburn curls flying like the glow bugs overhead.

"_Sebastian,"_ he heard her finally screech with a giggle. "Stop it! Put me down!"

His friend continued to swing her about, humming a non-existent tune and leaping through the grass, back towards Jack. His nerves set in naturally, even before he'd laid direct eyes upon the girl, and even before Sebastian had at last settled her on her feet.

She was no more than three feet off the sandy ground. Her hair was a mess across her face, but she brushed it away with one last blink, the one to last all of eternity. She turned her gaze up and stared right through Jack with innocent daggers of sapphire ice.

Then she smiled, and took whatever was left of his heart with her. It was just that sudden, that cosmic a thing between them. There would be no separating them from that moment on without sadness on her part and guilt on his, always. He had taken her under his uncertain, rebellious wing that night, even without her knowing it, even without having told himself.

"Hello," she held out her small hand. "I'm Delilah."

"My younger sister," Sebastian added.

Jack smirked. He knelt in the grass at her level and took her hand softly.

"Hello, lovely."

"Who are you?" she asked very simply.

"My name is Jack," he replied.

"_Captain_ Jack," Sebastian added firmly, brushing Delilah's soft hair.

And then, at a staggering eight years old, she went and asked the question to end all questions, the one that would not only define their friendship, but every bit of the harsh world that he was about to discover.

"Are you a redcoat?"

Jack's eyes went wide and his brow curled.

She pointed to his jacket. "My mother and father don't like redcoats."

With a nervous laugh, Sebastian tried to reprimand her improper manners.

"Delilah. That's not—"

"No, Hawk. It's alright," Jack interrupted him.

He turned his eyes upon Delilah once more, taken by the depth he saw in her eyes. She was a wise child.

"I'm not a redcoat."

He shook his head and tore off his company sewn coat. It landed in the sand the moment he said, "Promise."

There was silence for a moment while she stood examining him, the buzz of a lightning bug between them, as it danced around inside of the tin can that she had used to catch it with. Jack noticed the countless holes that had been pierced with a knife into the tin, so that as she held the can with the palm of her hands for cover, the yellow light sparkled through as evidence of her successful chase. If only he could have guessed then, how that image of a bug in a jar would have stayed with him forever, till the very end of his time.

The peace of it was broken by her voice, when she at last asked him, "Are you a pirate?"

Sebastian choked on a laugh and Jack grinned wickedly up at her from the ground. He didn't know where to begin to command her brilliance, for having seen straight through him at first sight. So he just nodded, thinking a million different thoughts and watched her eyes sparkle with excitement at the response.

_Delilah_.

That was his darling Delilah from the very start.


	5. Chapter 4: Feels Like Home

**Chapter 4: Feels Like Home  


* * *

**

**Poe's Tavern – Charleston

* * *

**

Mesmerized by his moving mouth and the words spilling out, Kate hardly had time to notice that another full hour had passed into late afternoon. She had filled glasses and added up tabs and cleaned the bar by routine alone, her body's own natural instincts. Her mind though, her eyes and ears and everything, were plastered on the man speaking to her, drowning her in the mysterious tale of his tongue.

She set down another clean glass when he slowed and stared across at him with glittering eyes.

"Jack. Delilah. They became instant friends, didn't they?"

The man nodded swiftly, drank from his own glass and scratched his rough chin. "She saved him. They all did," he said.

Kate's expression went serious when she asked, "From what?"

The man sighed. "From _himself_…"

* * *

**Sullivan's Island, South Carolina ****–**_October 5__th__, 1746

* * *

_

Jack blamed Sebastian for everything.

He blamed him for telling all of the homesick stories that had led to his own personal discovery of this sand and sea haven. He blamed him for inviting him home, to his home, a thing that Jack still felt certain he would never know for himself the same.

He blamed him for being his charming self and for introducing him to the people who had made him this way. He blamed him for a little girl catching fireflies in a tin jar, and mossy river rides and barefoot romps across the shores. He blamed him for the infatuation that the Hawkins' family and Sullivan's Isle became in only a matter of hours.

_Oh yes_. Jack blamed his dear friend Hawk for everything.

After having assured Delilah that he was not an officer of the British Navy or in any way loyal to the crown for which he sailed, she had been the one to take his hand and drag Jack to the house. She insisted that he had to come inside and meet their father. He wasn't entirely sure what the rush was for, until he had actually landed in the presence of Eli Hawkins. It didn't take very long to understand.

"Papa," Delilah had chanted, tumbling to his side where he sat by the fire. She shook his arm with a wild smile. "Papa, he's home! Sebastian!"

The older man, brawny even for his age, barefoot and peppered with years of work, shifted in his chair until he was standing. His face rose in the glow of the room and he turned his eyes up to find Sebastian a foot away.

Jack watched from a close distance, as the man embraced his son after what seemed far too long a time, smiling and mumbling loose jokes in his ear. He waited to approach, afraid of crossing a familial boundary, one he wouldn't understand even if he saw it. He hadn't known a welcome like that from his own father, ever.

"You look well. A might stronger, eh?"

Sebastian laughed at his father's patting on his back and arms.

"Sailing an ocean can make a man out of any boy, father."

"Sailing, you say?"

"Yes. The ship I took passage with was—"

"He sailed with pirates, Papa!" Delilah shouted from beneath their conversation.

Her father's eyes turned down curiously and he reached a hand out to pat Delilah's soft head of curls, before she bounced away to where Jack was. She grabbed at his hand again, in that same way that Jack noticed was easy to adore, far too persuasive and sweet, a child's eager hand. She pulled him into the middle of the parlor where Sebastian and his father were standing.

"This is Jack," she exclaimed with bright eyes turned up at all three of them. "He wears King George's coat, but he's a pirate."

Eli Hawkins' eyes went wide, suddenly very interested in the second young man before him.

He studied Jack for a moment, taking in his darker features, black stone eyes and loose tendrils of hair. He had similar cheekbones and cinnamon flesh to the indigenous tribes in Carolina, the people that Eli had befriended long ago. This young man was barefoot, dirtied with sweat and sand and saltwater, swinging his boots at his side, and a company coat dragging the floor in a careless manner.

This fact, this one simple notion, is what first made Eli Hawkins smile upon Jack's presence. And he had not stopped smiling that same trusting smile, from that moment on, for as long as Jack would know him.

At dinner, when Jack had been welcomed wholly into their home, he was seated beside Sebastian's father at a table that was large enough to feed a dozen people. Delilah had fought Sebastian for the spot beside Jack, and won, while he had laughed humbly at his own sudden popularity.

Their mother, the simple faced, sweet natured Emma, had taken the chair beside her son. During the meal, Jack took notice from the corner of his eye, at how she cried softly into her apron, her hand resting over Sebastian's, clearly beside herself with joy that he had made it home to her safely. It pricked at his heart. He had long since forgotten what that was, a mother's touch, and a mother's tears for her only son.

This smile of faded fear on Emma Hawkins' face brought him back to Eli's smile beside him. Jack learned very quickly where this man's allegiances rested, and for whom he lived.

He had been a merchant sailor since seventeen, when he had sailed from London himself, carrying trade goods between the Atlantic's ports. He had been promoted, as Jack had been many times, from a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Eli Hawkins had been a redcoat for almost a year. Until the day on the coast of Bermuda, so many years ago, that he had seen two officers and an admiral of the fleet abusing—in ways he would not rightly speak of at his dinner table— a young native girl.

She had been soon after, auctioned into slavery before he could stop them, but not before he had decidedly resigned and burned his coat.

Jack's expression had turned solemn, same as the rest of the family's. He saw Eli's gaze, set upon his little Delilah's face, as if he were trying to reconcile the past with the beauty of her blue eyes, the promise of her safe smile.

Jack had known just then, in ways he would not forget as long as he lived, what sort of men he had sold his soul to back in London. He found another of the crude truths behind the company, behind their shameless flag waving in every inhabited harbor. And he had learned, most importantly of all perhaps, what sort of people the Hawkins' family was made of.

They were proud and sure and fair-minded. They believed in humans as a whole, not in the power of a skin's shade. They were under no crown and no cross of any one kind. They sailed and lived and loved on their small corner of the world, where no one could bother them without enough good reason, and where the possibilities and limits and laws were their own to decide.

They were rebels of an uncouth flag and defenders of a liberty that only existed in their hearts, like simple, well-mannered bandits of the Carolina sands. It didn't take much for Jack to feel entirely comfortable among them.

"We have a small table tonight, you see."

Eli gestured to the empty chairs and sipped at his tin tumbler of rum.

"Our friends are having a bit of a spiritual gathering, if you will. Just down the beach."

With a mouthful of sweet roasted boar and potatoes, Jack caught Hawk's eyes across the table. His friend smiled back.

"Sebastian, you should take Jack down and introduce him."

"Can I go too, Papa?"

Delilah's eyes lit up pleadingly beside Jack.

Her mother answered immediately, "No. You belong in bed, my darling."

"It's alright." Sebastian winked at his pouting sister. "I'll return with every story and every song for you."

She smiled again and licked the molasses off her small fingers until the meal closed. Sebastian and Delilah helped their mother to clear the table, and Jack could not resist joining them. For the first time in his life, he wanted so badly to make a decent impression on other people. These were the people who meant something, and they meant something to him immediately.

Even as Sebastian moved for the door to lead him out, Jack could not resist turning back to find Delilah perched on the creaky stairwell, looking down at him. Her mother was trying to shoo her off to bed, but she just stood there smiling.

"Will you be here tomorrow?"

Her sweet little voice rattled him. "I sail out very early, 'm afraid."

"Oh," her head hung a little lower as she leaned on the banister.

Jack stepped closer and peered up into her innocent blue eyes. Eli and Emma were moving around in the parlor, listening to the pair of them and smiling.

"But I could certainly wake you before I do."

Delilah's eyes brightened. "Yes, please."

He nodded, "A tap on your door, perhaps?"

"Two taps," she exclaimed. "No. Three taps!"

Jack laughed and reached up to shake her hand.

"Three taps it is."

She placed her small hand in his and shook it fiercely, before turning on her sandy heels and rushing backwards up the stairs.

"Goodnight Jack."

"Night, Delilah."

He couldn't help watching her go until she was out of sight.


End file.
